Inside Report (4)

June 19, 1981

Behind the power struggle in Iran is a bit of irony. Beleaguered President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, considered more Western-oriented than the mullahs of the Islamic Republican Party, is at odds with IRP-backed Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Rajai over the country's budget for 1981. The $44 billion budget depends on oil production of 2.5 million to 3 million barrels per day (b.p.d.). But Iran is only pumping about 1.4 million b.p.d. and isn't expected to exceed 2.5 million until next year.

Going all-out on oil production to make money from Western customers, Bani-Sadr argues, flies in the face of Iran's revolutionary aim to align itself with neither West nor East.

IT is the mullahs, he contends, who are sel ling out to Western interests.m